Senate Dems to not write budget for fiscal 2015

WASHINGTON, March 1 (UPI) -- Senate Democrats said they don't plan on writing a fiscal 2015 budget because they reached a two-year deal in December with Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis.

The budget deal reached with Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, set budget ceilings for the 2014 and 2015 fiscal years, The Hill reported Friday.

"Fiscal Year 2015 is settled, the Appropriations Committees are already working with their bipartisan spending levels, and now we should work together to build on our two-year bipartisan budget, not create more uncertainty for families and businesses by immediately relitigating it," said Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray, D-Wash., in a statement.

"I went into my negotiations with Chairman Ryan hoping we could give the American people some much needed certainty after years of lurching to crisis to crisis, and I was very glad that our two-year budget deal accomplished that," she added.

Some Republicans criticize Democrats for deciding against a new budget.

"Senate Democrats are required by law to produce a budget," Budget Committee ranking member Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said Friday. "Our nation is in enormous financial distress, and workers and families are suffering. Senate Democrats have produced only one budget in the last five years. This Senate and, more importantly, the American public, deserve to see a detailed 10-year financial plan to contain our dangerously rising debt and revitalize our dismal economy."